He had been woefully unprepared for her to dig her heels in and make a stance, ending her diatribe, which had taken him completely by surprise by asking tartly, ‘Why don’t you want her to come to Devon, Damien? Is there something going on that I should know about?’
Deprived of any answering argument, he had recovered quickly and warmly assured his mother that there was nothing Violet would love more than to see the estate and get to know Dominic.
‘You will need a more extensive wardrobe than the one you have,’ he informed her because, as far as he was concerned, there was nothing further to be said on the matter. ‘You need wellies. Fleeces. Some sort of waterproof coat. I’m taking it that you don’t have any of those? Thought not. In that case, you’re going to go to Harrods and use the account I’ve already talked to you about.’
‘Do you know something? I can’t wait for all of this to be over! I can’t wait for when I no longer have to listen to you bossing me about and reminding me that I’m in no position to argue!’ Over the past few days she had been lulled into a false sense of security, of thinking that he wasn’t quite as bad as she had originally thought. She had watched him interacting with his mother, had listened as he had soothed the same concerns on a daily basis without ever showing a hint of impatience. She had foolishly started feeling a weird connection with him.
‘Is that how you treat everyone?’ she blurted, angry with herself for harbouring idiotic illusions. ‘Is that how you’ve treated all the women you’ve been out with? Is that how you treated Annalise?’ It was out before she had a chance to rein it in and his eyes narrowed into chips of glacial ice.
‘Was that another topic under discussion with my mother?’
‘No, of course not! And it’s none of my business. I just feel...frustrated that my whole world has been turned upside down...’
‘Excuse me if I don’t feel unduly sympathetic to your cause,’ Damien inserted flatly. ‘We both know what was at stake here. As for Annalise, that’s a subject best left unexplored.’ Without taking his eyes from her face, he signalled for the bill.
‘You can’t expect me to spend a week in your mother’s company and not have an inkling of anything to do with your past.’ She inhaled deeply and ploughed on. ‘What do you expect me to say when she talks about you? It’s going to be different in Devon. We’ll have a great deal more time together. Your mother’s already mentioned her once. She’s sure to mention her again. What am I supposed to say? That we don’t discuss personal details like that? What sort of relationship are we supposed to have if we never talk about anything personal?’
She stared at him with mounting frustration and the longer the silence stretched, the angrier she became. He might be the puppet-master but there were limits as to how tightly he could jerk the strings! She foresaw long, cosy conversations with his mother when her only response to any questions asked, aside from the most basic, would be a rictus smile while she frantically tried to think of a way out. She would be condemned to yet more lying just because he was too arrogant to throw her a few titbits about his past.
‘I don’t care what happened between the two of you. I just want to be able to look as though I know what your mother’s on about if she brings the name up in conversation. Why are you so...so...secretive?’
Damien was outraged that she had the nerve to launch an attack on him. Naturally there was a part of him that fully understood the logic of what she was saying. Undiluted time spent with his mother in front of an open fire in the snug would be quite different from more or less supervised snatches of time spent next to a hospital bed during permitted visiting hours. Women talked and it was unlikely that he could be a stifling physical presence every waking minute of the day. That said, the implicit criticism ringing in her voice touched a nerve.
Bill paid, he stood up and waited until she had scrambled to her feet.
‘Are you going to say anything?’ She reached out and stayed him with her hand. ‘Okay, so you’ve had loads of girlfriends. That’s fine.’
‘I was going to marry her,’ Damien gritted.
Violet’s hand dropped and she looked at him in stupefied silence. She couldn’t imagine him ever getting close enough to any woman to ask for her hand in marriage. He just seemed too much of a loner. No...it was more than that. There was something watchful and remote about him that didn’t sit with the notion of him being in love. And yet he had been. In love. Violet didn’t know why she was so shocked and yet she was.
‘What happened?’ They were outside now, heading back towards the hospital. Her concerns about going to Devon had been temporarily displaced by Damien’s startling revelation.
‘What happened,’ he drawled, stopping to look down at her, ‘was that it didn’t work out. I didn’t share the details with my mother. I don’t intend to share them with you. Any other vital pieces of information you feel you need to equip yourself with before you’re thrown headlong into my mother’s company?’
‘What was she like?’ Violet couldn’t resist asking. In her head, she imagined yet another supermodel, although it was unlikely that she could be as stunning as the one on the cover of the magazine.
‘A brilliant lawyer who has since become a circuit judge.’
Well, that said it all, Violet thought. It also explained a whole host of things. Such as why a highly intelligent male should choose to go out with women who weren’t intellectually challenging. Why his interest in the opposite sex began and ended in bed. Why he had never allowed himself to have a committed relationship again. He had been dumped and he still carried the scars. She felt a twinge of envy for the woman who had had such power over him. Was he still in touch with her? Did he still love her?
‘And do you bump into her? London’s small.’
‘Question time over, Violet. You now have enough information on the subject to run with it.’ Damien’s lips thinned as he thought of Annalise. Still hovering in the wings, still imagining that she was the love of his life. Did he care? Hardly. Did he bump into her? Over the years, with tedious and suspicious regularity. There she would be, at some social function for the great and the good, always making sure to seek him out so that she could check out his latest date and update him on her career. He never avoided her because it paid to be reminded of his mistake. She was a learning curve that would never be forgotten.
Violet saw the grim set of his features and drew her own, inevitable conclusions. He had been in love with a highly intelligent woman, someone well matched for him, and his marriage proposal had been rejected. For someone like Damien, it would be a rejection never forgotten. He had found his perfect woman and, when that hadn’t worked out, he had stopped trying to find another.
What they had might be a business arrangement, but everything he had ever had with every woman after Annalise had been an arrangement. Arrangements were all he could do.
‘I’ll get some appropriate clothes,’ Violet conceded. ‘And you can text me with the travel info. But, at the end of the week, it’s over for me. I can’t keep deceiving your mother.’
‘By the end of the week, I think you will have played your part and I will officially guarantee that your sister is off the hook.’
‘I can’t wait,’ Violet breathed with heartfelt sincerity.
THE HOUSE THAT greeted Violet the following evening was very much like something out of a fairy tale. Arrangements for Eleanor’s transfer had been made at speed. Her circumstances were special, as she was the principal carer for Dominic, and Damien, with his vast financial resources, had made sure that once the decision to transfer was made, it all happened smoothly and efficiently.
In the car, Violet had alternated between bursts of conversation about nothing in particular to break the silence and long periods of sober reflection that the task she had undertaken seemed to be spinning out of control.